Thursday, April 24, 2014

Breathe In, Breathe Out. Repeat.

I'm not alone. I'm not the only mother in the world with multiple children. I'm not the only mother in the world with the majority of those children having a disability.

I am the only mother in my house who does, though.

Today is a day that I am under the weight of my children. And trust me, that feels as awful to me as it is for you to read.

There are moments as a mother in my house where I am sure that I am experiencing on a visceral level what it's like to be my son and my daughter. Moments where there is nothing but sound and movement and input and pressure and it's loud and unrelenting and pushy and pully and I'm whirling through the waves kicking and paddling in a futile attempt to keep my head above water.

The difference is that I have speech and cognition and the ability to reason. But that difference can make the scene all that more maddening and uncontrollable because my talking and thinking and rationalizing doesn't work all the time. Sometimes it just doesn't work.

I haven't yelled at my kids in so long...  I can't remember the season I last yelled. I don't know if I was barefoot or boot-clad, sweating or chilled to the bone.

An unconsolable Lincoln clutching and yelling and whining and pulling demands all of my attention.

A desperate and wronged Penelope cuts a nasty gash that needs me more.

A defiant and belligerent Ruby staring me down.

Direct requests shit on.

Disregard and mayhem in the form of glitter flung far and wide and all over the dinner I was about to serve. Empty plates of mochi shoved in the face of me asking no one to eat before I could serve that now bedazzled dinner.

I fucking lost it.

I HAD TO WALK OUTSIDE AND TAKE CARE OF LINCOLN FOR FUCKSSAKE.

He only wanted me. He needed me. It had to be me.

Here's the kicker: I'm here, ripped apart and licking my wounds and I hear Penelope and Lincoln in the other room playing and talking as if nothing happened.

And I can feel the weight of Ruby's anger seeping up through the floor, because she, like me, takes much longer to go from boil to simmer to cool.

This is hard.


Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Need to Know Basis

"Where are we going?"
"Where are we?"
"What's he doing?"
"Where is he?"
"Where is she going?"
"What are we doing?"

With a tiny hand, palm side up, fingers slightly spread and bent so sweetly at the wrist. Hair making tender, vanilla iced slashes in the air as his head flits from side to side looking for more things, people, stuff to ask questions about. Incessant goddamned questions! His questions are Indy cars flying though his mind and out of his mouth.

"What is that?"
"Who is coming?"
"How are you?"

He is EXHAUSTING with his questions. Even once he knows the answer, he ASKS ON! It starts from the moment his downy head appears at my bedside each morning and goes till that same fluff-ball of a noggin is down for the night.

"Mommy? Mommy? Mommy? Mommy? Mommy? Mommy? Mommy? Mommy? Mommy? Mommy? Mommy? Mommy? Mommy!"

"Yes, baby?"

"Love you, too!"

That last bit right there is why I keep entertaining my newly minted linguist/inquisitor/sergeant-of-all that-must-be-known.

To those of you who told me this day would come, I thank you and I love you and we're here, with lots of wine and snacks if you'd like to stop by and acknowledge some of these questions for a few hours? Please? Pleeeeeaaaaasssse!

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

A Day in the Life

Started crying in the car the other day when I was driving home from Trader Joes with the Great One and her friend, Kat and we  put on the Idina Menzel version of "Let it Go".  Kat had only heard the Demi Lovato version and it was vitally important to readjust her worldview.

I cry every time I hear that woman sing that song.  PJ, my sweet and precious elf is playing it on her iPad next to me right now and I get so overwhelmed, so taken…

Show tunes? Me?!? For the love of all that is good and holy, what in the world has happened here?!?

It's change. Pully, stretchy, achy, thickly sweet and stingingly sour change. While this nasty beast of a Winter is dragging her brutal ass off the stage, pulling mild, shy and unctuous Spring behind her I am swaying from side to side; caught in their fickle fucking dance. And when I make a big enough move from one side to the other, a new tiny shred of new and knowing forces itself to the surface. I'm collecting the pieces and building them up in a way that will eventually fit me (maybe when Spring finally takes over and resets the scene once and for all?).

I feel stronger, more capable, more in love. I also feel vulnerable and unsure and aware of how fragile my whole life is. Appreciation? I think I've always had that. But it's different, tougher.

Like the other day in Sephora with Ruby and Kat… We were there (as promised) to fulfill one of Ruby's magical birthday wish list  items and because of a lack of childcare and an overabundance of attachment, we took Link with us to NYC for the day. Sephora was the final stop.

He was WILD. He was crawling around my body without touching the ground. He was yelling and would sometimes shriek. He was rubbing his open mouth all over my arms and face and pulling my hair over my head to cover his head. I held tight. We were next in line, backing out now wasn't an option. The young woman checking us out never skipped a beat, never a sidewise glance or exasperated breath (she even gave us an EXTRA birthday gift). All the while I'm thinking to myself: How lucky am I! I get the trust and the love of this boy! This, the most fascinating and confounding boy within miles of where we were standing LOVES ME! He loves me. And I also brought the feeling into my veins that shopping isn't always like this. Shopping is usually NOT like this and those flutters of calm and reason flowed in and out of my heart muscle with every breath I took. I swear my pulse was never above 70 the whole time we were in the store.

As we were leaving, I looked at our salesperson and I thanked her for being so patient and gentle faced and when I said those words, the whole line of women at the registers turned their heads to the left and smiled at me and Lincoln in unison and I wanted to go all Oprah on them! You get a car! You get a car! You get a car!

I wanted to scream with glee: See! is that so hard?? Is a little understanding of something so obviously different from yourself so hard?

Walking along Houston St. back to the parking garage with my beautiful daughter and her pastry shop pretty friend sashaying along in front of us, Link's saliva was drying on my arms and face and it left behind a scent that was so comforting and delicious. My arms were getting sore, my back hurt (even today, days later, I have an ache in my forearms that P90X would have a hard time inflicting) and I was getting a blister between my big toe and my flip-flop thingy and I couldn't think of a time that I had felt happier, more at ease.

That's the change I'm talking about. The giving in to the magnetic pull, the not resisting, the staying strong.

What does this have to do with that song? Listen to it. Listen to it and tell me it doesn't make you feel something. And it you don't, if it doesn't' dig in (even just a bit), think about that and try this change shit. it's pretty damn transcendental.